{"id":4654,"date":"2017-03-10T09:49:18","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T14:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=4654"},"modified":"2025-07-09T12:24:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T16:24:03","slug":"a-church-garden-for-hot-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2017\/03\/10\/a-church-garden-for-hot-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"A Church Garden for Hot Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If you ask Deacon Al Lajoie of the Family Christian Center about his church’s newest community program, he will say, “It’s just a hot dog.”\u00a0 Why is the church offering some of its 13 acres to the public for garden plots?\u00a0 “Just a hot dog.”\u00a0 That’s been the catchphrase of this congregation for almost a month, Lajoie explained.\u00a0 It came from a sermon by the church’s pastor.\u00a0 In it she told of how a man had asked her son for a quarter to buy a hot dog.\u00a0 He gave more than the man had asked–financially, but also in giving his time.\u00a0 Before long he found his response had opened up a more meaningful encounter with the man than he could have foreseen.\u00a0 For members of the Family Christian Center, “Just a hot dog” has come to mean that kind of response: doing simple things for people, but doing them attentively, non-judgmentally and prayerfully.<\/p>\n

The program will provide those without their own land, such as apartment or dorm dwellers, an opportunity to grow their own produce. \u00a0Another deacon, Steve Poitras, calls it a “boot-strap” program, a way to help people help themselves.\u00a0 Poitras oversaw a garden-plot program when he was the facilities director at The Aroostook Medical Center.\u00a0 It was one of several employee benefit programs there at the time, including wood-splitter rentals and co-op food purchases.\u00a0 When Poitras had been stationed in Germany, where land is more limited than in the U.S., he had seen community gardens plotted between sets of train tracks.<\/p>\n

Lajoie also saw community gardening at the apartment complex where his parents-in-law lived.\u00a0 “Everybody takes care of their own plots…. But when people are out watering and see yours getting a little dry, they’ll give it a spray.”\u00a0 This is where the Hot Dog principle comes in.\u00a0 It’s not just an opportunity to have cheaper, better food and a more physical lifestyle.\u00a0 “If people start caring for one another in little things,” the Reverend Gail Bellamy explained, “it will eventually change how you do other things. \u00a0It’ll filtrate into the economy. \u00a0People will be more apt to buy local.”\u00a0 She hopes it will change how people think about both their lifestyles and one another.<\/p>\n

So could UMPI have its own hot dog garden?\u00a0 As Poitras points out, it takes some oversight, someone to prepare the ground and provide the water.\u00a0 Lajoie points to a willingness to sacrifice in a non-showy way.\u00a0 “This is why I’m not a rich person,” he laughed.<\/p>\n

To see the need takes a certain mindset.\u00a0 The movement from small and particular tasks to larger questions and concerns is integral to the mission of a university.\u00a0 It\u2019s what makes a university a university rather than a vocational school.\u00a0 In our present state, it may be needful to take cues in these matters from churches, hospitals and community centers.\u00a0 If the lesson is heeded, it will be the meaning that is replicated, not the program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you ask Deacon Al Lajoie of the Family Christian Center about his church’s newest community program, he will say, “It’s just a hot dog.”\u00a0 Why is the church offering some of its 13 acres to the public for garden plots?\u00a0 “Just a hot dog.”\u00a0 That’s been the catchphrase of this congregation for almost a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8889,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4654\/revisions\/8889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}